 Campaigns > Statewide Pilot Programs > Florida
CHEJ’s Florida Children’s Health Community Organizer: Cherisse Braithwaite is a graduate of the University of South Florida in Tampa. She holds a BSc in Environmental Science and Policy from the USF Honors College. She has also completed academic minors in Sociology and Geography.
Since our founding, CHEJ's experienced organizing staff has helped thousands of community groups form, grow and win local fights. We provide personal assistance over the phone, in person, and over the Internet, to help individuals form a group, define their goals, and develop a plan to achieve them. By providing groups with the tools they need to organize and win, CHEJ assists community based groups in carrying out their fights in their own self-sufficient way.
Check out what CHEJ is up to in Florida this year:
Florida Environmental Justice Law Conference Call Series: Starting in late August 2009, CHEJ will be hosting a three part conference call series about the Florida Environmental Justice Law, a discussion on the roadmap to enforcement, and how to hold effective public conversations. Join community members and environmental health advocates across the state in this information, skill building, and innovative series of discussions. To RSVP and get more information please send an email to Cherisse at cpoc.intern3@chej.org.
Summer Skill Set Series:
The Summer Skill Set Series is a biweekly workshop series that CHEJ began hosting in June 2009. The first two sessions of the four part series were held in different locations in South Florida and discussed Fundraising Parts 1 and 2: “Traditional Memberships and Donations” and “Individual Donations & Innovative Fundraising”. Each session had experienced speakers including CHEJ staff who spoke in detail and answered questions. Interactive activities allowed participants to simulate real world moments to sharpen their fundraising skills and share new ideas. The last two sessions of the series will be held in August so if you would like to participate in this useful opportunity, please RSVP to cpoc.intern3@chej.org for full details and materials!
FACE Justice Tour: The FACE Justice (Florida Action for a Clean Environment and Justice) tour is unlike your traditional toxic tour. Toxic hot spots throughout South Florida are being highlighted in order to raise awareness to community struggles to bring justice and find sustainable solutions to their environmental health fight. This untraditional tour includes community meetings, statewide discussions on how to enforce current environmental laws and build alliances that are creating a healthier and safe Florida.
***FACE Justice Tour Member in the News!***
Lees Justice: Shortly after the March 30 community meeting, Lees Justice was founded by Deatra McCoy, the daughter of one of the community leaders of the Wingate and Lincoln Park struggle. Leola McCoy passed away August of 2008, after struggling for years to gain environmental justice for her community in this Fort Lauderdale neighborhood. Lees Justice will work to provide the residents of Wingate and Lincoln Park . The Sarasota Times covered this newly organized effort.
Wingate and Lincoln Park (Fort Lauderdale, FL): The FACE Justice Tour will officially launch in the community of Wingate in Fort Lauderdale on MARCH 30TH, 2009. Concerned citizens of Wingate and Lincoln Park communities along with the Legal Aid of Broward County will be holding a community meeting to discuss the impacts of the Wingate Superfund site and a proposed charter school that developers are attempting to site on this Superfund location. CHEJ’s Executive Director, Lois Gibbs, spoke about the power of an organized community and encouraged those attending to stay focused and united in order to find sustainable solutions for their community. The meeting centered around the current state of the Wingate Superfund Site and community impacts on the health of those near it as well as setting goals and a plan of action on how to solve these community problems.
View footage from this powerful event as Lois Gibbs speaks about the community's efforts to stop the siting of a charter school just steps from a known superfund site. Click here
Don't Know much about the Wingate Superfund Site? Check out this Fact Sheet about the background, the problems surrounding the community, and what citizens are asking for.
To keep updated on the FACE Justice Tour join our listserv.
Disney Go Green: Through the efforts of people just like you, who care about the health of our children, the Disney Go Green campaign is in full swing and making good progress (and having lots of fun in the process). Ask Disney to eliminate toxic cleaning products from all their parks, hotels, and restaurants today and keep checking back from new ways to get involved throughout the year!
Past Year’s Events
In 2005 we held three regional meetings in Orlando, Miami and Tallahassee to learn about ongoing work in the state, and to provide a space for individual groups to share their areas of focus and connect with each other. A working group formed from those meetings and assisted in putting on the 2006 Environmental Health and Economic Justice Conference in Winter Park, Orlando, wherein sixty state and local activists made connections with each other, led trainings and plenary discussions, and participated in workshops.
The conference spurred the formation of two working groups, the Florida Alliance for Healthy Indoor Environments (FAHIE, mentioned above), a group committed to reducing toxic chemicals from children’s environments, and the Clean Energy Future, a collaboration of clean energy activists.
The Florida Alliance for Healthy Indoor Environments, or FAHIE, created an introductory packet of green cleaning materials for schools and childcare centers, and brochures on the impacts of toxic chemicals in traditional cleaners. FAHIE has met with several childcare facilities, a Catholic school, and two janitorial unions to share the information and to stimulate school leadership to explore safer alternatives for maintenance procedures and products
Clean Energy Future collaborated to host screenings of the energy conservation and awareness documentary KiloWatt Ours in thirteen cities across the state. Group members activities and successes battling coal fired power plant construction in Taylor County, St. Lucie and Okachobee; working with legislators for a healthy and responsible state energy plan; fighting to halt off-shore drilling and more, continues to keep them incredibly busy and connected.
OTHER FLORIDA GRASSROOTS WORK:
Congratulations to the Farmworker Association of Florida in Apopka who celebrated 25 years of work and accomplishments in the struggle for the rights of farmworkers in Florida. (Summer 2008)
Activists and organizers from ACORN, the Farmworkers Association of Florida and the community of Apopka attended a workshop organized by CHEJ to address environmental and health concerns in the community. . Residents are concerned about a proposed expansion of a nearby landfill and about potentially toxic emissions released from the medical waste incinerator next door. Community leaders, who have been working on these issues separately, came together at the end of January to combine their efforts and develop a plan to begin to address these issues in their neighborhood. CHEJ was able to help the participants prioritize their problems and identify other community groups they should involve. CHEJ will continue to provide organizing assistance to this effort. (Spring 2008)
Florida activists attend workshop in Apopka, FL with CHEJ. (Spring 2008).
A new group in Kenansville is organizing to stop a sludge composting project. The plan calls for sludge to be dried in a greenhouse-like process that developers promise will produce an “environmentally safe” fertilizer. The community isn’t buying it however. The county planning and zoning staff recommended approval to the planning board that also approved the project despite a large turn-out at the planning board meeting. Leaders left the meeting, however, more optimistic about stopping the project at the next level – the county commission. The group is stepping up its efforts to increase turn-out even more so at the county commission meeting. They hope to persuade the county commissioners to reject the project. CHEJ is providing organizing and technical assistance to the group. (Winter 2008)
Environmental Alliance of Northern Florida (EANOF) in Mayo is getting organized to stop a plan to build a coal pulverizing plant that will burn coal to produce energy and that has targeted their community because of the availability of free water! All of the energy generated would go to homes outside the county. EANOF is concerned about emissions of mercury and other toxics from the proposed plant. Mayo is also the home of several other polluting plants and has decided that “Enough is EANOF!
Local activists in Nassau County have called on politicians to reveal the location of an old paper mill waste dump located near a school and residential area. The county denies the existence of the dump, but community leaders know better and are hoping to convince the government to clean up the site. CHEJ is working with the community to train core leadership and develop the best tactics to engage the local government in conversation. (Fall 2008)
Grassroots activists from across Florida joined CPOC and CHEJ for a weekend leadership development conference in Orlando last month. The conference provided organizing and science training, and was put on with the assistance of a statewide steering committee. Activists deepened their organizing skills, learned from each other, and established valuable connections. The meeting included three roundtable sessions that focused on local issues. The Florida Alliance for Healthy Indoor Environments led one session that created a work plan for the coming year, and shared progress from last year including co-launching the Disney Go Green Campaign, and creating the “What’s Gotten Into Your Soap?” green cleaning packet. Another roundtable allowed pesticide activists representing organic farmers, farm workers, and consumer networks to share their experiences and provide a beginning for the development of deeper collaborations. In the third roundtable, groups fighting proposed or existing polluting facilities shared their common experiences. More intensive, locally based meetings will follow in the coming year, as well as quarterly state-wide conference calls to continue to develop this activist network.
Citizens Against Toxic Exposures (CATE) in Pensacola helped form the Bay Area Safe Air Coalition (BASAC) to address air pollution problems in the Pensacola Bay area. Last February, CATE and BASAC welcomed Hilton Kelley, director of Community In-Power Development Association of Port Arthur, TX to their community where he collected air samples using a portable monitoring device called the “UV Hound.” This device detects industrial chemicals immediately at the time of the sampling. CATE and BASAC are using the results from this testing to bring attention to the polluting facilities on the Bay and to pressure the state to take steps to improve air quality.
After struggling for several years in Pensacola, Panther Parents Against Pollution won relocation for students at a contaminated school site! Four years ago, after her daughter investigated the history and prior uses of two Superfund sites near her school for her 7th grade history fair project, a concerned parent and environmental activist began organizing to win relocation of the students at the Brown Barge Middle School. Migrating contaminants from two nearby toxic sites, including the Escambia Wood Treating Superfund site, home of “Mt. Dioxin,” posed serious threats to the school. Next year, thanks to the relentless efforts of Panther Parents Against Pollution, students will no longer attend classes atop soil contaminated with dioxins and other dangerous chemicals.
Joy Towles Ezell from Help our Polluted Environment in Perry traveled all the way to Washington, DC to attend the release of the National Academies’ long-awaited review of the USEPA’s dioxin reassessment. She challenged the committee chair who described dioxin exposures as a “thing of the past,” making clear that people are still being exposed to dioxins at very high levels and are sick and dying from these exposures. Her testimony was a cold reminder of the real world suffering occurring as industry and government continue to stall regulations to protect the public. The committee’s review supported the basic scientific conclusions in the EPA report including that dioxin is a human carcinogen and that the non-cancer effects pose serious public health risks. See CHEJ’s press release for more information..
The Saufley Field Citizens for Closing the Dump held a rally at a church in Pensacola that was attended by more than 400 people including invited state and county leaders and government officials. The residents were fuming over uncontrolled fires that have been burning on and off for months at the Saufley Construction and Demolition Landfill. They have repeatedly complained of asthma problems, foul odors, noise and truck traffic to no avail. Debris at the landfill has been piled so high that it towers over the neighboring homes. State tests confirm that the landfill is polluting the local groundwater with benzene, iron, aluminum, sulfate, and manganese. The group wants the landfill shut down and has successfully pressured the Escambia County Commissioners who passed an ordinance to control the landfill operations.
Good news for residents in St. Lucie County. Plans to build a 3,000 ton per day gasification plant to burn garbage have been scaled back to a pilot project that would burn between 200 and 400 tons per day. Community opposition has been strong and county commissioners have no answers to questions raised about emissions from the proposed plant. These and other concerns were detailed in a powerful letter written by the president of the St. Lucie Medical Society. The commissioners are hoping to use the results of the pilot project to build public support to allow expansion to full size. (Winter 2008)
Floridians Against Incinerators in Disguise held a press conference in Tallahassee to expose proposals by Green Power Systems and Goplasma to build plasma arc facilities to process garbage as incinerators in disguise. The groups warned of the potential dangers of these facilities and launched a campaign to stop them. Speakers from Greenaction and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, both based in California, addressed misleading claims made by companies proposing plasma arc facilities in the state, as well as around the world. They also discussed the troubled history of this technology and explained why they are incinerators in disguise that emit dioxins and other pollutants into the air. (Summer 2008)
> See other local grassroots work in Florida.
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